Happy Constitution Day! Annenberg Annual Civics Survey

[Dill]

(09-19-2018, 11:23 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: Sadly i can not tell if that is serious. Sounds like you suggest the working poor blindly throw their support behind a party just because...

Why do we even need a democracy when people have other things to do than inform their votes.

Leave it to the experts, like voks did before democracy.

[Dill]

(09-19-2018, 11:28 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Do you know why a carpenter's pencil is flat?

Every voter is a citizen. Not everyone is a carpenter.

Voter who cannot name the three branches of government=carpenter who doesn't know what a carpenter's pencil is.

[*bfine32*]

(09-20-2018, 12:39 AM)Dill Wrote: Why do we even need a democracy when people have other things to do than inform their votes.

Leave it to the experts, like they did before democracy.

Circle jerk aside. What does being able to name the 3 branches of government have to do with informed votes?

[GMDino]

(09-19-2018, 11:11 PM)bfine32 Wrote: While we sit here and snidely say: "I cannot believe how ill-informed those folks are"; what does it really matter?

Some folks are just more concerned with putting food on the table. They'll leave whether the House and Senate must confirm a SCJ to those that do it for a living or folks that have enough time on their hands to worry about such trivialities.

(09-19-2018, 11:28 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Nah, they just work to earn a living and they realize when that living gets better or worse. No one said they were poor. They could give 2 shits about the names of the branches of government.

Do you know why a carpenter's pencil is flat?

They just promise to do something and then never have to think again....

[treee]

(09-20-2018, 12:44 AM)bfine32 Wrote: Circle jerk aside. What does being able to name the 3 branches of government have to do with informed votes?

For example, knowing the 3 branches of govt is tied with knowing that they are supposed to keep each other in check. When the highest level of the judicial branch is unwilling to check the authority of the highest level of the executive branch (ie a supreme court nominee stating that you should not be able to indict a sitting president), that has very real consequences for a very young democracy. This is something people should be thinking about, even your Average Joes.

[Belsnickel]

(09-19-2018, 11:23 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: Sadly i can not tell if that is serious. Sounds like you suggest the working poor blindly throw their support behind a party just because...

While they do, it's not just the working poor, or who we often perceive as the uninformed. Often, the more knowledgeable a person is of this sort of thing, the more partisan they become. The idea that a large electorate of informed voters provides the most democratic, responsive, representative government is based on faulty theories that just don't pan out in reality.

[*michaelsean*]

(09-19-2018, 11:16 PM)Dill Wrote: Timed out! And I think I saw you use your cell phone.

Yeah kinda hard to prove you didn't look it up in the twelve hour interim.  

[*PhilHos*]

(09-20-2018, 12:40 AM)Dill Wrote: Every voter is a citizen. Not everyone is a carpenter.

Voter who cannot name the three branches of government=carpenter who doesn't know what a carpenter's pencil is.

Is it that voters can't NAME the 3 branches but know that there ARE 3 branches of government? Or is it that they don't know that there's 3 branches of government?

[*Nately120*]

(09-19-2018, 11:28 PM)bfine32 Wrote: Do you know why a carpenter's pencil is flat?

No, but that doesn't stop me from telling carpenters that they should use round pencils like I do.

[*michaelsean*]

(09-20-2018, 12:24 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Is it that voters can't NAME the 3 branches but know that there ARE 3 branches of government? Or is it that they don't know that there's 3 branches of government?

President, Senate, House of Representatives.  There nailed it.  

[Dill]

(09-20-2018, 08:38 AM)michaelsean Wrote: Yeah kinda hard to prove you didn't look it up in the twelve hour interim.  

I think we can trust me . 

Normally I don't ask questions like that unless I already know the answer.  I think I saw that question on a poll somewhere. Or maybe it was in a copy of the Constitution with "fun facts."  

[Dill]

(09-20-2018, 01:20 PM)michaelsean Wrote: President, Senate, House of Representatives.  There nailed it.  

[Dill]

(09-20-2018, 12:24 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Is it that voters can't NAME the 3 branches but know that there ARE 3 branches of government? Or is it that they don't know that there's 3 branches of government?

Same difference, really.

As Treee pointed out, knowing the three branches is a prerequisite for knowing how they interact with and "check" one another.

How could you know that Congress is supposed to check the executive if you are not sure either is a branch of government?  How familiar with them can you be if you can't name them?  

It is hard to imagine that someone who cannot name the three branches of government can really follow a discussion about whether checks and balances are properly working right now.  Many say that they are not. Journalists are explaining what is at stake, for example, if members of the HoR or Justice behave as if they have sworn an oath to the president and not to the Constitution.  Is Jeff Sessions disloyal to Trump if he recuses himself from all matters dealing with the Russia investigation? If you know nothing about how the U.S. government is designed to work, it may make perfect sense that an AG should do what the president tells him, like any employee in a private firm.

"What does being able to name the 3 branches of government have to do with informed votes? "
Bfine may consider this an answer to his question as well.

[fredtoast]

I think it is imperative to know the division of powers so rubes don't get conned into voting for a Presidential candidate because he promises to make abortion illegal.

[Dill]

(09-20-2018, 08:05 AM)Belsnickel Wrote: While they do, it's not just the working poor, or who we often perceive as the uninformed. Often, the more knowledgeable a person is of this sort of thing, the more partisan they become. The idea that a large electorate of informed voters provides the most democratic, responsive, representative government is based on faulty theories that just don't pan out in reality.

I see why you are saying this, if you been reading Sunstein and folks researching resistance to rational argument.  It has been found that on many political issues people with what we call "college educations" are more ready to dig in their heels when faced with counter-evidence to their political beliefs, however rationally presented.

But there may be two important qualifications here-- 1) the kind of "knowledge" in which one is knowledgeable is important. Some kinds do lead to more partisanship. Or to resistance to evidence-based and rational arguments. But I do not think all do. 2) How and about what and in what quantities the electorate is "informed" is also critical here.  Polls of Fox viewers have found they often know more about government, who the current House Whip is, and similar info, than their liberal counterparts.  But polls during and after the Iraq war showed that they were also more misinformed about causes and results of that war than their liberal counterparts.

I would argue that a large electorate of generally and CRITICALLY informed voters does provide the most democratic, responsive, representative government; and this has been born out since the 18th century. (There is a reason why dictatorships censor the press and education.)  It's pretty clear democracies have no chance without informed and educated voters.  Even if not a sufficient condition, they are certainly a necessary one.  

I would connect the success of democracy to literacy rates as well. This and my previous point are critical to studying and understanding the current alarming trend towards authoritarianism in democracies--including, perhaps most especially, our own.

[*michaelsean*]

(09-20-2018, 06:25 PM)Dill Wrote: I think we can trust me . 

Normally I don't ask questions like that unless I already know the answer.  I think I saw that question on a poll somewhere. Or maybe it was in a copy of the Constitution with "fun facts."  

I meant me.

[*Nately120*]

I will say that there might be a connection between Americans not knowing much about the government and how it works and deciding that "has no political experience" is the best reason to elect someone to be president. We don't know anything about the government, other than it is crappy and it sucks so we elected a guy who proudly said he isn't a politician and our system sucks.

Go figure.

[Dill]

(09-20-2018, 09:18 PM)michaelsean Wrote: I meant me.

OH, well that is a different story. 

As one sainted Republican president put it: "Trust--but verify!"

[Dill]

(09-21-2018, 12:12 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I will say that there might be a connection between Americans not knowing much about the government and how it works and deciding that "has no political experience" is the best reason to elect someone to be president.  We don't know anything about the government, other than it is crappy and it sucks so we elected a guy who proudly said he isn't a politician and our system sucks.

Go figure.

Yes. Incredible. No one would do that with any other profession.  The local hospital/bank/school district/police department is mismanaged; let's get someone in there with no experience to fix the problem; someone whose solutions sound a lot like others' with no experience. 

But people were also "helped" to this conclusion by other people who stood to gain from the chaos and anti-government fervor.

The other part of this is also that no one with "experience" is going to announce his candidacy with the claim Mexico is "sending" us rapists and demanding a Muslim ban.  The less you know about the history of US government, not to mention of civil rights, the less problem you will see with someone like that at the helm of the world's most complex and powerful bureaucracy. 

[*PhilHos*]

(09-20-2018, 06:53 PM)Dill Wrote: Same difference, really.

As Treee pointed out, knowing the three branches is a prerequisite for knowing how they interact with and "check" one another.

How could you know that Congress is supposed to check the executive if you are not sure either is a branch of government?  How familiar with them can you be if you can't name them?  

It is hard to imagine that someone who cannot name the three branches of government can really follow a discussion about whether checks and balances are properly working right now.  Many say that they are not. Journalists are explaining what is at stake, for example, if members of the HoR or Justice behave as if they have sworn an oath to the president and not to the Constitution.  Is Jeff Sessions disloyal to Trump if he recuses himself from all matters dealing with the Russia investigation? If you know nothing about how the U.S. government is designed to work, it may make perfect sense that an AG should do what the president tells him, like any employee in a private firm.

"What does being able to name the 3 branches of government have to do with informed votes? "
Bfine may consider this an answer to his question as well.

I get what you're saying, but what I'm asking is if the difference in the people not knowing the names of the 3 branches versus knowing there's 3 branches is taken into account. People may not know that the 3 are called Executive, Legislative, and Judicial, but they may know there's the president, Congress (and even the 2 separate branches of congress, too!), and the Supreme Court without knowing the technical term for each branch. Sure, there may be more people that don't know that there are 3 branches than those who know but can't name them, but I'm just curious as to if that difference is taken into account.